The decapitation of the regime was just the start. The revolution will have to go further if it's going to deliver what people want
Anyone who imagined that the Egyptian revolution would be settled with the ousting of Hosni Mubarak has already been sorely disabused. The dictator may have been bundled out of the presidential palace and demonstrators temporarily cleared from Tahrir Square. But the social and political upheaval shows every sign of spreading.
It's not just that the protests are now fanning out across north Africa and the Middle East: to Yemen, Algeria, Jordan, Iran, Libya and now Bahrain – home of the US navy's fifth fleet. In Egypt itself, as in Tunisia, where the uprisings began, pressure for more far-reaching change is if anything growing, as setpiece street demonstrations have morphed into a wave of strikes.
Industrial action played a central role in the final push to drive Mubarak from power last week – just as it did in sparking resistance to the regime a couple of years ago in the textile production centre of Mahalla.
But now walkouts and occupations have mushroomed across Egypt, in defiance of the army high command's edict to return to work: on the buses and trains, in the steel and flour mills, among oil and gas workers, post office and bank employees.
Even the police who were dispatched to use lethal force against the people to save Mubarak's skin are now demanding decent pay and conditions – as their counterparts are in Tunisia. And although the impact of neoliberal reforms and economic crisis in Europe was a crucial trigger for the uprising, these aren't just bread and butter stoppages.
The strikers are also demanding the removal of bosses tied to the regime, along with officials in the unions, universities and professional bodies corrupted by the old order. That's because only the ageing autocrat has gone. The regime itself to all intents and purposes remains in place. The army has taken control but the government appointed by Mubarak is still there. So is the secret police – and the panoply of emergency legislation through which it held 80 million people in thrall for 30 years.
The army is widely respected in Egypt, partly because of its record in the 1973 war with Israel. But the military elite is part and parcel of the regime, intimately tied to the US military and deeply implicated in a web of corrupt economic privileges and privatised perks.
Naturally, divisions have emerged now the principal target of the uprising has gone: about how much slack to cut the army, what attitude to take to the strike movement, and whether and how to negotiate. Then there are fears that the kind of slow-motion, "orderly" transition favoured by the army leaders and Mubarak's western sponsors would allow both the old guard and their friends to divert, control and buy off sections of the opposition – especially given the lack of strong leadership.
A political or social revolution is not a single act, but a process. The Egyptian upheaval has its own context and will take its own path. But the great popular revolutions all followed a similar initial pattern. Neither the French revolution of 1789 nor the Russian revolution of February 1917 nor the Iranian revolution of 1979 were headed from the start by ready-made leaders.
That doesn't mean Egypt is going to end up with socialism or an Islamic state. But it does point to the strong likelihood that neither the Egyptian army nor anyone else is going to be able to halt this process where it is, nor prevent a far deeper democratic transformation and settling of accounts with the old regime.
The American government is already trying to ride the tiger of democratisation – in a country where 82% of the population has an unfavourable view of the US – and can be expected to use every trick in its playbook to limit the scope of change and prevent Egypt and others dropping out of its orbit.
Far from being a threat to reform, as Egypt's military leaders claim, only relentless pressure in the streets and workplaces can offset such meddling and deliver the change Egyptians want. Wherever this process ends, we can be sure it is only just beginning.
